How we cope our arms

We'll go over how we shape our arms at least the first bit, the arms have the most hand shaping than any other part of the chair, at least that how it feels. We get the initial shape by coping the arms on the table saw which is done by sliding the arm blank across the blade at an angle rather then through it.

First we have to dress the rough lumber which involves cutting it to rough length, jointing a face smooth then jointing an edge square to the face. Then the blank gets put through the planer to the proper thickness.

We then trace on our arm template, in this case a medium rocking chair arm template.

Here we're setting up the straight edge that the jig slides along across the saw blade. The jig has a angle that holds the arm blank at an angle to the saw blade.

This is the arm blank mounted in the jig notice the cut on the blank that matches up with the corner block in the jig, this helps keep everything in order.

We raise the blade a 1/4 turn at a time, it takes about 12 passes to achieve the desired shape we want for our arms to rest in.

Here is the result

After we are finished on the table saw, we can now cut out the arms to size. There are many more steps to do on the arms but we're well on our way.

Below is the desired final shape, while sitting in the wooden rocking chair you forget it's made of wood because it is so comfortable. This is just one way we achieve a chair that is designed for the human body.

Thanks for having a look at our custom wooden rocking chair blog, come back soon!